With Kon Knueppel playing a key role, the Hornets have won 5 straight to get to .500 this season.
The race for Kia NBA Rookie of the Year, the prize unofficially tracked week by week here at the Kia Rookie Ladder, appears to be tighter than at any previous point this season.
In fact, much as the Ladder’s top two ring-holders flipped last week when Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel moved ahead of Dallas’ Cooper Flagg. In an update from Draft Kings SportsBook, Knueppel was the favorite, Flagg is now the underdog while Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe a distant third as a ROY candidate.
Flagg for much of the season has put up bigger counting stats than his former Duke teammate, with some explosive performances (49 points vs. Charlotte, 42 at Utah, 39 with nine boards and nine assists in a thrilling victory vs. Denver). However, Knueppel has kept pace by leading the NBA in 3-pointers, already breaking the rookie record from deep and flirting with shooting accuracy worthy of the vaunted 50/40/90 club.
In about six weeks, ROY voters will weigh all of their stats, along with intangibles and expectations met or missed. Then there are a couple other factors that could swing a potentially tight race.
One is durability. Flagg has played in 49 of Dallas’ 61 games thus far, missing the past seven with a foot sprain. Knueppel has shown up for 61 of the Hornets’ 62. That double-digit difference in appearances is how Knueppel has surpassed Flagg in total points, rebounds and assists despite Flagg’s slight edge on a per-game basis.
The second is winning. Charlotte is 31-31 after beating Dallas again Tuesday. Though, Knueppel has more than 2-0 bragging rights as the Hornets not only have won 10 more games than Dallas, they already have topped their total from last season (19). That’s the sort of improvement big-time rookies are expected to trigger.
The Mavericks, by comparison, are unlikely to approach last year’s 39 victories. Even though a rookie rarely gets blamed when his team takes a step back, it’s not a common look among ROY winners.
Of the last 25 Rookies of the Year, only three played on teams that won fewer games than they had the season before. Sixteen of the 25 helped their teams win at least 30 – the Mavericks are on pace to finish 28-54.
Nine winners played on teams that improved by 10 victories or more, with Knueppel’s club on track to add 22 with him on board. The only ROY guys in that ballpark, of the past 25, were Ben Simmons (+24), Chris Paul (+20) and LeBron James (+18).
Is winning the most important criteria for a first-year player? Probably not. But the draft is designed to deliver help to the neediest teams, and it’s not written anywhere that the help mustn’t show up in Year 1. Knueppel has more talented teammates, but his shooting range, floor IQ and fundamentals have unlocked something exciting in Charlotte.
Flagg has the heavier lift, stepping into the void from Luka Dončić’s departure last season to carry the injury-riddled Mavericks. His individual game at both ends is flashier than his former Blue Devils roommate’s. But in a league that values efficiency and has never been very patient with losing, Knueppel’s instant impact for a new playoff aspirant might be enough to claim the award.
Here are this week’s Ladder rankings:
Weekly recap
- San Antonio guard Dylan Harper crashed the party, becoming the first rookie other than Knueppel or Flagg to win a Rookie of the Month Award for his work in February. Harper’s case in the West got made less by his individual numbers (12.5 ppg, 4.9 apg, 55.4% shooting) and more by the Spurs’ 11-0 perfection in February. Knueppel won again in the East as the Hornets went 8-3, taking a 4-3 lead over Flagg in the monthly honors this season.
- Good things come to those who wait, Dallas rookie point guard Ryan Nembhard learned over the weekend when the Mavericks converted his two-way contract into a standard two-year NBA deal. Undrafted out of Gonzaga last June, the brother of Indiana’s Andrew Nembhard has helped the Mavs with 6.7 ppg, 1.8 rpg and 4.9 apg while hitting 37.4% of his 3-point attempts.
- Hugo González, Boston’s first-year spark plug, had his biggest night yet at Milwaukee Monday, scoring 18 points, grabbing 16 rebounds and surviving his defensive mismatch vs. Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo. “With those types of players, you can’t really guard them by one person,” González said. “You got to take the matchup as a team.” González leads all rookies in plus/minus by a wide margin (plus-283).
- Memphis’ Walter Clayton Jr. didn’t just set a personal best when he passed for 14 assists Sunday against Indiana. He grabbed the rookie high from Nembhard (13) and he tied the Grizzlies’ franchise mark for most by a rookie. Ja Morant dished 14 assists twice in the 2019-20 season.
Storyline to watch
Head-to-head scarcity. With Flagg sitting out Tuesday, our opportunities to see elite matchups of the Ladder’s top rookies are dwindling. Knuppel’s Hornets play at Dylan Harper’s gym on March 14. Flagg has potential showdowns with Derik Queen in New Orleans March 16 and with Harper in San Antonio April 10. And Edgecombe gets a game against Knueppel March 28 and against Harper April 6.
(All stats through Tuesday, March 3)
1. Kon Knueppel, Charlotte Hornets
Season stats: 19.2 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 3.5 apg
Last Ladder: No. 1 ↔️
Draft pick: No. 4
Hornets coach Charles Lee doesn’t get a vote, but he put out a little campaign propaganda Tuesday on Knueppel’s ROY candidacy. “I don’t even think it’s close,” Lee said prior to his team’s victory in Charlotte. “Kon’s done a really good job continuing to separate himself, and impact winning and have consistency to him on both ends of the floor. … But for the most part, Kon is a humble competitor who I don’t even think gets caught up in it.”
2. Cooper Flagg, Dallas Mavericks
Season stats: 20.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 4.1 apg
Last Ladder: No. 2 ↔️
Draft pick: No. 1
Flagg raised some hopes Tuesday during his warm-up routine, but ultimately did not play to cancel the anticipated rematch of their top two rookies’ showdown last month in Dallas. Even Mavs coach Jason Kidd sounded Tuesday like he was hoping to see it. “They play the game the right way,” Kidd said. “They’ve had impacts on both their teams and that game in Dallas was a very entertaining and high-scoring game. Both rookies put on a show.”
3. VJ Edgecombe, Philadelphia 76ers
Season stats: 15.3 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 3.9 apg
Last Ladder: No. 3 ↔️
Draft pick: No. 3
The rookie guard got plowed into from behind Tuesday vs. San Antonio and fell hard. He got more attention from his dive-and-spill at Boston, in which he landed in the second row and inadvertently kicked a female fan in the head (all was well afterward though). In and around those mishaps, the Bahamian impressed at both ends.
4. Dylan Harper, San Antonio Spurs
Season stats: 11.2 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.7 apg
Last Ladder: No. 6 ⬆️
Draft pick: No. 2
As Harper goes, so go the Spurs? An argument can be made over the direction of this but when San Antonio wins, Harper averages 11.8 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists with a true-shooting rate of 56.4%. In the Spurs’ losses, all those stats trend downward: 8.7, 2.9, 3.3 and 44.9%.
5. Derik Queen, New Orleans Pelicans
Season stats: 12.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 3.9 apg
Last Ladder: No. 4 ⬇️
Draft pick: No. 13
Contributing lately off New Orleans’ bench, Queen – on a 36-minute basis – is averaging 17 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. How rare is that for a rookie? Only one other has done it: Maurice Stokes, who went for 17.4, 17.0 and 5.1 way back in 1955-56. (Oscar Robertson hit those thresholds straight-up in his debut season but he also averaged 42.7 minutes – pro-rate down and he misses on rebounds.)
The next 5
6. Maxime Raynaud, Sacramento Kings
Season stats: 10.4 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 1.1 apg
Last Ladder: No. 5 ⬇️
Draft pick: No. 42
More minutes – doubling to almost 30 nightly in February the 14.5 he averaged in October/November – has the Kings center atop the rookie double-double list (12) and second to Queen in total rebounds. But that exposure has had an inevitable downside: He leads the rookies in worst plus/minus (minus-344 heading into Tuesday’s action).
7. Cedric Coward, Memphis Grizzlies
Season stats: 13.3 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 2.9 apg
Last Ladder: No. 7 ↔️
Draft pick: No. 11
Coward hadn’t played since before the All-Star break, missing the Rising Stars game that weekend and the Grizzlies’ seven games afterward. But he and his sore right knee got on the court Tuesday at Minnesota for limited minutes — a bit of sunshine for Memphis.
8. Ace Bailey, Utah Jazz
Season stats: 12.1 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.7 apg
Last Ladder: No. 8 ↔️
Draft pick: No. 5
Bailey was a candidate for the West’s monthly rookie honor that Harper won. He averaged 18 points and 5.3 rebounds last week, part of his 14.3 points and 6.4 boards in February while showing his skills.
9. Jeremiah Fears, New Orleans Pelicans
Season stats: 13.4 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 3.2 apg
Last Ladder: T-10 ⬆️
Draft pick: No. 7
Big week for the Pelicans point guard (19.3 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 4.3 apg, 50% 3FG shooting) moves him up the ladder. After his 18 point, 11 rebound night at Utah, coach James Borrego said: ““His poise, his play-making settled us. … To rebound like that at his size and position just fuels our offense. And he continues to grow defensively, making havoc plays out there.”
10. Egor Dëmin, Brooklyn Nets
Season stats: 10.3 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 3.3 apg
Last Ladder: No. 9 ⬇️
Draft pick: No. 8
Scoring in single digits in four of five games, Dëmin was held out Tuesday at Miami for injury management of his left foot plantar fasciitis. He did have 20 assists to three turnovers in those five games.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
